Driven by gas consumption demand and rising oil and gas prices in the past several years, shale gas production has gained momentum and initiated a new era for gas production. The characteristics of shale reservoirs may typically be described as having extremely low permeability (100-600 nano-darcys), low porosity (2-10%), and moderate gas adsorption (gas content 50-150 scf/ton). In order to achieve economical production and enhance productivity, large numbers of horizontal wells and massive multistage hydraulic fracturing treatment (HFT) jobs have been performed in a shale reservoir. Due to the complex nature of the shale reservoirs, which are vastly different from conventional or other types of unconventional reservoirs, it is difficult to obtain a clear understanding and an accurate description of the shale reservoir.
In view of the above, various operational practices have been tested in the field; and a variety of geophysical and petrophysical data were acquired, cores were tested in labs; and especially microseismic (MS) mapping has been performed to improve the understanding of the hydraulic fracturing induced or post-hydraulic fracturing (PHF) fracture system characteristics. Further, geomechanical modeling (e.g., properties and stress) can also offer insight for well path and completion design. With a complex shale gas development system, a general workflow and data integration process for shale gas reservoir modeling and reservoir simulation would allow for integration of various data, performing of various analysis, evaluation of the inter-relationship of different operations and, thus, improving the understanding of shale gas reservoir characteristics and offer a quantitative means and platform for optimizing shale gas production. Also, a solution for proper modeling of hydraulic fracturing induced fracture network with MS and HFT execution data would allow for a better understanding of the PHF system, production mechanism, reservoir drainage estimation, and refracturing design.